Kris Hagerman CEO, Sophos

Sophos Ltd. announced that Kris Hagerman will become the company’s new CEO effective immediately, and will join the company’s board.

 Hagerman succeeds Steve Munford, who will become non-executive chairman of the board. Peter Gyenes, the current chairman, will continue as a member of the Sophos board as its lead independent director.

Munford has been CEO of Sophos since 2006 and led the company through a period of growth. The company posted a record $400 million in annual bookings in its most recent fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, more than tripling bookings since 2006. After leading Sophos for seven years, Munford will be returning with his family to his native Canada.

"Steve has been an outstanding leader for Sophos," said Peter Gyenes, chairman of Sophos’ board of directors. "Under Steve’s leadership, the company has delivered strong revenue growth, built a comprehensive product portfolio, and successfully entered a number of high-growth market segments, including unified threat management (UTM), mobile device management (MDM) and cloud encryption. The board appreciates Steve’s contribution to the success of the company, and we are delighted that Steve will continue his involvement as chairman."

"I am proud of our team’s accomplishments over the last seven years as we have transformed Sophos from an anti-virus vendor to a strategic provider of complete security," said Munford. "I am excited to welcome Kris as our new CEO to lead Sophos into the future. I look forward to working closely with Kris and the board as we continue to build on Sophos’ global success."

Hagerman spent seven years in senior management positions at Symantec and Veritas before becoming CEO of Corel Corporation in 2008. At Symantec, he was group president, data center management, overseeing a $1.5 billion business with more than 2,000 employees, representing nearly 30% of Symantec’s revenue. Prior to that, he was EVP, storage and server management at Veritas, where he led a $1.0 billion business with more than 1,000 employees. During Hagerman’s career as a senior executive at Veritas, the company grew from approximately $1.0 billion in revenue to more than $2.0 billion in revenue, prior to its acquisition by Symantec. After Symantec, Hagerman was CEO of Corel Corporation, where he took the company private, improved the company’s profitability, enhanced the product portfolio and product quality, and grew the customer base to over 100 million users.

"Kris brings strong execution and strategy skills, a proven ability to lead top performing teams, and a successful track record of scaling billion-dollar software organizations," Gyenes said. "We enthusiastically look forward to working with Kris and to his leadership for the company’s continued growth."

"I am thrilled to join Sophos," said Hagerman. "Sophos has a winning strategy, a highly talented team, and world-class products that provide an exciting opportunity to expand our share of the growing IT security industry. I look forward to working with the Sophos team to deliver compelling value to our customers and partners and to continue the company’s momentum and success."